1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an inter-moving body interferometric positioning system, device and method thereof for carrying out positioning in coordination with other moving bodies in the vicinity.
2. Description of the Related Art
A relative position calculation device is available based on vehicle-to-vehicle communication that is provided with a relative position calculation unit using global positioning system (GPS) radio wave propagation time difference for determining the relative position of a nearby vehicle based on a host vehicle by determining the difference between GPS radio wave propagation time data of a nearby vehicle and GPS radio wave propagation time data of the host vehicle together with establishing and solving a simultaneous expression between three or more of the thus determined GPS radio wave propagation time difference values and an unknown number of relative positions (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 10-148665 (JP-A-10-148665))
However, as is described in JP-A-10-148665, although various methods have been proposed for specifying relative position between two moving bodies using GPS data, the case for carrying out determination of relative position among three or more moving bodies has yet to be considered.
Here, in the case for determining relative position among three or more moving bodies, when positioning between each vehicle is carried out in a manner similar to the methods used in the case for carrying out positioning between two moving bodies, not only the communication load and calculation load increase, there is also a problem of being unable to attain consistency in the positional relationships among a plurality of vehicles. For example, in the case of determining relative position among three moving bodies, if the relative positions of two other vehicles in the vicinity is determined in each vehicle, efficiency overall becomes poor. In addition, there is also an absence of consistency in the positional relationships among the vehicles as determined by each vehicle due to the vehicles used as a reference differing between each vehicle.